OBJECTIVE: It is known that increased sympathetic activity and decreased parasympathetic activity are present in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). This study aims to investigate the correlations of autonomic dysfunction and differences in autonomic circadian activity with arrhythmia prevalence in women with FMS. METHODS: Fifty female patients with FMS and ...

SERCA2a deficiency is commonly seen in advanced heart failure (HF). This study is designed to investigate safety and biological effects of enzyme replacement using gene transfer in patients with advanced HF. A total of 9 patients with advanced HF (New York Heart Association [NYHA] Class III/IV, ejection fraction [EF] < ...

Alcoholic patients who consume >90 g of alcohol a day for >5 years are at risk of developing asymptomatic alcoholic cardiomyopathy (ACM). Those patients who continue to drink may become symptomatic and develop signs and symptoms of heart failure (HF). This distinct form of congestive HF is responsible for 21-36% ...

Adiponectin may influence the development of chronic heart failure (CHF), but the epidemiological data are scarce. This is due in part to the fact that while higher BMIs are a risk factor for CHF, obesity is a predictor of improved prognoses in patients with CHF since wasting is strongly associated ...

Chronic kidney disease and chronic heart failure are closely interlinked; an abnormality in one system adversely impacts upon the function of the other. Despite the wealth of evidence available for beneficial treatment strategies in chronic heart failure, the prognosis remains poor and optimum therapy under-utilised. The applicability of proven therapies ...

BACKGROUND: Familial dilated cardiomyopathy (FDCM) is characterized by clinical and genetic heterogeneity. There are still few survival studies concerning this subgroup of patients. AIM: To determine the prognosis of patients with FDCM on optimal medical therapy and attending a heart failure clinic. METHODS: This is a prospective study including patients ...

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to investigate possible associations between different heart rate variability (HRV) indices and various biomarkers of inflammation in 45 septic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We daily assessed HRV in the time domain (SD of RR intervals [SDNN]), frequency domain (low [LF], high frequency [HF], ...

OBJECTIVE: The 1985 International Extracranial-Intracranial (EC-IC) Bypass Trial failed to show a benefit following surgery in patients with varying degrees of angiographic ICA stenosis. More recent studies using modern technology to identify appropriate candidates, however, have generated promising findings. As a result, controversy exists regarding the role of this technique ...

Nocturnal breathing disorders in the form of periodic breathing (PB) are very common in heart failure (HF) patients. There is an increasing interest in simple and affordable tools to screen patients and monitor these disorders at home on a long-term basis. We aimed to assess the pathophysiological and clinical relevance ...

Chronic congestive heart failure (CHF) is associated with an increase in cytokines and inflammatory markers, particularly in elderly patients in whom chronic inflammation is generally present per se. In the present pilot study, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), a recently discovered cytokine, was analyzed together with different clinical and laboratory parameters ...

BACKGROUND: Assessing autonomic function is important for patients with chronic heart failure, but the way that autonomic function changes in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and correlates with other clinical parameters during their young age is not clearly known. METHODS: Heart rate variability (HRV) during ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) was ...

Anemia is common in heart failure patients but its prevalence varies widely according to various sources. There is no agreement regarding the definition of anemia to be used and several risk factors have been found to be associated with higher prevalence of anemia in heart failure patients. The prevalence of ...

The prevalence and importance of liver function test (LFT) abnormalities in a large contemporary cohort of heart failure patients have not been systematically evaluated. We characterized the LFTs of 2679 patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure from the Candesartan in Heart failure: Assessment of Reduction in Mortality and morbidity program ...

Plasma homocysteine (Hcy) has been associated with an increased cardiovascular (CV) risk in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF). Thus, we investigated whether Hcy has a prognostic impact on CV events in CHF-patients with and without cardiorenal syndrome (CRS). 161 patients with CHF were included in the present analysis. 94 ...

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the clinical correlates and prognostic value of depressed baroreceptor-heart rate reflex sensitivity (BRS) among patients with heart failure (HF), with and without beta-blockade. BACKGROUND: Abnormalities in autonomic reflexes play an important role in the development and progression of HF. Few studies have assessed the effects of ...

A classification system to detect congestive heart failure (CHF) patients from normal (N) patients is described. The classification procedure uses the k-nearest neighbor algorithm and uses features from the second-order difference plot (SODP) obtained from Holter monitor cardiac RR intervals. The classification system which employs a statistical procedure to obtain ...

BACKGROUND: Patients with severe congestive heart failure (CHF) often have unexplained elevations in serum concentrations of troponin T (TnT), and it is proposed that this is due to cardiac TnT release because of underlying cardiac disease. We investigated whether impaired renal function is an additional underlying phenomenon contributing to increased ...

Recent studies have shown that prescription rates and doses of recommended drugs for chronic heart failure (CHF) are not optimal in daily practice. The aim of the Impact-Reco programme was to analyse prescription rates of CHF drugs in stable outpatients with CHF related to left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction in ...

sorafenib, a tyrosine-kinase inhibitor, is widely used in the treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Drug-related toxicities are generally mild but sorafenib, as other similar agents, may induce elevation of systemic arterial blood pressure levels in relation to an interaction with cardiovascular system probably mediated by HIF pathway. This side effect ...

OBJECTIVE: 1. To present RF with all its features during more than 30 years period. 2. To compare RF features in early 80s and today 3. To stress the role of echocardiography in the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with RF and RHD. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Retrospective analysis of patients ...

INTRODUCTION: Rapid diagnosis of volume overload in patients with suspected congestive heart failure (CHF) is necessary for the timely administration of therapeutic agents. We sought to use the measurement of respiratory variation of inferior vena cava (IVC) diameter as a diagnostic tool for identification of CHF in patients presenting with ...

Overproduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines is a well established factor in the progression of chronic heart failure (CHF). Changes in cellular immunity have not been widely studied, and the impact of standard medication is uncertain. Here we investigate whether a leukocyte redistribution occurs in CHF and whether this effect is influenced ...

Tang Collin H H CH School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. - - 2009

Sepsis is a potentially lethal condition, and is one of the major causes of death in non-coronary intensive care units. Sepsis syndrome progresses through a number of increasingly severe stages, from systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) through sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock. Each stage of sepsis is potentially characterized ...

BACKGROUND: Amiodarone (AMD) is a strong antiarrhythmic drug but has severe side effects such as pulmonary toxicity. There are no indicators or drugs that can prevent the development of amiodarone-induced pulmonary toxicity (AIPT). METHODS: We collected data for 96 consecutive patients treated with AMD and analyzed clinical factors related to ...

In patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) cachexia as well as Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR) are well known disorders. The relationship between CSR and cardiac cachexia however, remains unclear so far. Clinical as well as full-night polysomnographic data from 12 cachectic patients were compared to 13 non-cachectic patients with CHF. The ...

Hypereosinophilic syndromes (HES) constitute a rare and heterogeneous group of disorders, defined as persistent and marked blood eosinophilia associated with evidence of eosinophil-induced organ damage. Cardiac dysfunction is the most frequent result of end-organ damage and is the major cause of morbidity and mortality among patients with HES. Despite patients ...

Extracardiac or genetic abnormalities (EGA) represent a factor in the morbidity of patients with congenital heart disease. We evaluated the way neonates with CHD are screened at our institution and determined the yield for the screening tests. We reviewed the charts of 223 neonates with structural CHD. Subjects were categorized ...

Although there is substantial interest in the use of newer biomarkers to identify patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), recently few investigations have evaluated the incremental usefulness of multiple conventional biomarkers. Combination of several biomarkers simultaneously could enhance risk stratification in CHF. We analyzed 7 biomarkers (brain natriuretic peptide, uric ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Prognostic survival studies for heart-rate corrected QT interval in patients with chronic heart failure are few; although these patients are known to have a high risk of sudden cardiac death. This study was aimed at determining the mortality risk associated with prolonged QTc in Nigerians with heart ...

Adaptive servo-ventilation as well as continuous and bi-level positive airway pressure seems to effectively treat sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), and to improve left ventricular function. However, no randomized data show a significant impact of ventilation on survival in patients with CHF. By contrast, ...

Major characteristics of symptomatic patients with heart failure are exercise intolerance, poor prognosis, and poor quality of life (QOL). However, most QOL questionnaires are applicable for patients with mild to moderate heart failure, and are not sufficiently sensitive to discriminate between patients with NYHA classes III and IV. Therefore, it ...

Beta blockers have a proven benefit in the management of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and for secondary prevention of coronary events. Current guidelines list such reactive airway diseases (RADs) such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as relative contraindications to beta-blocker use. However, the co-morbid burden of ...

BACKGROUND: Since the Randomized Aldactone Evaluation Study (RALES), the use of spironolactone is recommended in systolic heart failure (HF) patients that have been in New York Heart Association (NYHA) class III or IV. There is limited information on the use, side effects, and withdrawal rate of spironolactone in routine clinical ...

BACKGROUND: Morbid obesity (MO) is a risk factor for congestive heart failure (CHF). The presence of MO impairs functional status and disqualifies patients for cardiac transplantation. Bariatric surgery (BAS) is a frontline, durable treatment for MO; however, the safety and efficacy of BAS in advanced CHF is unknown. HYPOTHESIS: We ...

BACKGROUND: Heart rate turbulence (HRT) has been shown to predict the prognosis after myocardial infarction (MI), but its prognostic value in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) has not yet been well established. AIM: To evaluate HRT in patients with CHF and assess the prognostic significance of HRT in this ...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to describe heart rate turbulence (HRT) in advanced heart failure (HF) patients and in a group of patients who underwent heart transplantation (HT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed 24-hour Holter recordings in 20 patients with advanced HF referred to our hospital for HT, ...

OBJECTIVE: Very low accumulation of 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (LoMIBG) in the human heart has been reported. This study assessed the frequency and characteristics of LoMIBG in the human heart. METHODS: A total of 2212 patients (male/female ratio 1442/770, mean age 64 +/- 12 years) who underwent MIBG imaging were included. LoMIBG was ...

BACKGROUND: Patients with heart failure have a poor prognosis. However, it has been presumed that patients with heart failure and preserved left ventricular function (LVF) may have a more benign prognosis. OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the clinical outcome of patients with heart failure and preserved LVF compared with patients with reduced ...

The present study aimed to evaluate the association between osteoporosis and CHF in elderly patients and to assess the effect of physical performance, vitamin D levels, inflammatory markers on this association. One hundred and twenty-six consecutive patients aged 65 years and above, with moderate to severe CHF who presented to ...

BACKGROUND: There are limited data describing the prevalence, type, and severity of cognitive impairments (CIs) in the general population with chronic heart failure (HF). The primary purpose of this study was to fill this gap in the literature by comparing the cognitive function of patients with chronic HF and community-dwelling ...

Optimal care of patients with heart failure requires a multifaceted approach that includes guideline-driven, evidence-based therapies, intensive patient education, careful initial and follow-up assessment, and appropriately constructed nutrition prescriptions. Central to the construct of the nutrition prescription is advice regarding sodium consumption. It is intuitively and generally agreed upon that ...

Several surveys show that patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) are sub-optimally managed and treatment guidelines are not implemented in clinical practice. To investigate awareness and perceptions of the 2005 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines for CHF. 467 cardiologists from seven European countries completed an on-line interview using a ...

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common problem in male patients with heart failure (HF). However, no study was found that estimates the prevalence of ED by US ethnic groups with HF. We conducted an observational, cross-sectional study of patients enrolled in a HF disease management program in two sites Louisiana ...

PURPOSE: Periodic breathing (PB), characterized by waxing and waning oscillations of ventilation, has been reported in some patients with heart failure. Although PB is usually assessed in sleeping patients, PB has also been observed in awake patients. We tested the hypothesis that PB in awake, resting patients with heart failure ...

AIM: To describe the self-reported fluid intake and its effects on body weight, signs and symptoms of heart failure, quality of life, physical capacity and thirst, in patients with stabilised chronic heart failure. BACKGROUND: Patients with chronic heart failure are often recommended a fluid restriction of 1.5 l/day but there ...